I felt sick. I recalled what my friend Stef Spellman from Starlight Express had once said, that if a lump doesn’t hurt, that’s when you should worry.

When I pressed hard there was no tenderness whatsoever.

‘Oh come on, it can’t be breast cancer,’ I told myself. ‘You couldn’t be that unlucky!’ Besides my poor body was in hormone hell – I was bound to spot unusual lumps and bumps.

Still, no harm in getting peace of mind, even if the doctor thinks I’m fussing.

My heart was racing as the doctor examined me. When she told me it was a blocked duct, it was such a weight off my mind.

(Image: BBC)

Looking back, I’m not actually that cross that my GP didn’t pick up on it straight away. It was her job to calm a heavily pregnant woman with a changing body and that’s exactly what she did.

Although I loved the last month and a half of my pregnancy, I was also sad and teary.

Two weeks had passed since my visit to the doctor but the lump was still as prominent. Why wasn’t it beginning to go? Why wasn’t it sore?

Call it a sixth sense but, deep down, I think I knew it wasn’t right. And I hid from the truth.

One day Ash came home and found me weeping uncontrollably. I’d spent the afternoon running through every scenario.

Every daughter needs a mummy – what if my little girl lost hers before we had any time together?

I looked up at Ash and just blurted out, ‘If I died Ash, you would be all right, wouldn’t you?

‘I mean, you would pick a good woman to look after you and Gigi? It’s just that this lump is still here.’

Three weeks after Gigi’s birth I was back at the doctor’s.

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This time a locum doctor examined me – it probably was a blocked milk duct.

At first relief washed over me. I wanted to take her comforting verdict and get back to my newborn baby.

But there was this niggling doubt. Despite the all-clears from two doctors, my gut instinct was telling me to be wary.

‘I’d like a referral,’ I told her. ‘Just for peace of mind.’ I went home to wait for my appointment.

Then my friend Madeleine was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 36 with two little boys. Fear shot through me.

As Madeleine began to describe how she’d found her tumour in the side of her left breast under her armpit I began to tremble.

Then she told me how it didn’t hurt at all. I felt nauseous. It sounded exactly the same as my lump – a lump I had now had for three months.

She texted me the name and number of her consultant.

Mr Williams was a lovely man, but he didn’t believe in mincing his words. ‘I’m very suspicious,’ he told me bluntly.

The nightmare had begun.

After a week and a half of being prodded and poked, I’d been given the most horrendous news. At the age of 35, I had an aggressive form of breast cancer: grade three.

I could hear the pain in Ash’s voice as he asked, ‘Is there a grade four?’ No, came the reply. ‘Can we survive this?’ he asked.

‘It’s possible – some people have,’ came the blunt response.

Instead of enjoying those first few months with Gigi, her first gurgle, giggle or smile, I would be enduring a lumpectomy, chemo- and radiotherapy, and staring my mortality in the face.

Life had never seemed bleaker.

Lots of people I’ve spoken to agree that the initial diagnosis is one of the worst parts of it.

It’s as if you draw a line under the life you have known until that moment, kiss it goodbye and start all over again as a different person.

Nothing is the same. When you are first told you don’t know all the ins and outs of what’s to come, all the different ways that things could play out, that as many people survive as die.

All your everyday worries evaporate and a deep, deep fear takes root. And it never really leaves. I’ve always been known for being very loud and chatty, but I felt frightened and withdrawn.

I just wanted to cocoon myself in a bubble with Ash. He was my whole support system.

Seeing Ash cry was just awful. I’d probably seen him cry only a handful of times in the 16 years I’d known him. And every time I looked at Gigi it set me off.

My parents immediately offered to come and stay but I asked them not to for a while. I wanted to shield them from the worst.

Mum had lost her sister Mary to breast cancer the previous April and had another friend my age who was losing her battle.

She couldn’t do what every parent wants to do: she couldn’t take it away.

Ash is always my first port of call. My darkest fears would be shared with Ash, and Ash alone.

I decided when it started that he’d be my confidant from beginning to end and, as each difficult day panned out, I knew our love would grow stronger.

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Ash was, and still is, extremely protective. I know now that he told everyone to remain as positive as possible around me. On the day of my operation to remove the lump, Ash begged Mr Williams for information.

He’d eventually been told that the cancer had probably invaded my lymph glands – meaning the cancer could have spread – and he decided not to tell me until we knew for sure, so I could focus on getting over the operation.

He carried the weight of that secret alone for nine whole days. It must have felt like an eternity. God love that man of mine.

I’ll take my tablets for 12 months and be examined every year for five years. I’ll worry about every ache and pain but we still have all our dreams for our baby.

After 17 years Ash is making an honest woman of me!

After laying on the charm I’ve managed to get him to set the date for this September.

It’s going to be a pink extravaganza. Jordan and Peter have nothing on me!